


Last I Saw You

by CaiPrince13 (almostasgayasstartrek)



Category: Black Sails, Treasure Island & Related Fandoms
Genre: Bakery and Coffee Shop, Canonical Past Character Death, M/M, Reincarnation, past Flint/Hammilton(s), past Silver/Madi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-10-23 20:22:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10726530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/almostasgayasstartrek/pseuds/CaiPrince13
Summary: Whether memory or the imaginings of an ill mind, isn't a second chance worth the risk?Alternately, in which Silver and Flint are reincarnated because I ship it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welll, hopefully none of my Star Trek people are seeing this and realizing that I have decided to write an entire, completed (one shot) fic for another fandom without updating any of my other pieces. And if you are, sorry? I swear I'll get back to it, it just might be this summer since I'm still working and don't have the stamina for long fics and sub plots right now.
> 
> For my new Black Sails people, I hope you enjoy! I'd love to hear your thoughts on it, and, as always, criticism (constructive or otherwise) is always welcome!

James Flint stood stiffly before the shop, staring through the window at the man behind the counter. He had ducked under the awning of the little café to escape the rain, but, now that he was there, he wondered if it was worse that he had.

He swore he knew the man grinning at patrons and making whatever steamed concoction one purchased at a place like this. James swore he knew the man behind the counter, but it wasn’t from this life. He remembered it so vividly, this other life, but there was no strain of proof or grain of evidence that it wasn’t just all in his head.

His psychiatrist once told him that it wasn’t unusual to make up lives about the people one sees in passing, but James’ reply to that was that he couldn’t have seen some of these people, because they wouldn’t have been born yet when he first started imagining them.

No, this man, in memory, at least, this man was called Silver. Long John Silver. A pirate.

And the best friend that James ever had.

If there was something more than that between them, James had never let it come to the open. You couldn’t in 1715 lest you be tried for sodomy.

The bell over the door rang and James jumped. When he glanced back through the window, it was to see Silver—the barista, he corrected, there was no way to see his name tag from here—was staring at him as though his appearance had startled him. It probably had. James wasn’t the type of customer this type of place was probably accustomed to and it wasn’t as though he was helping matters by skulking outside.

Now that he’d been caught, James didn’t see an alternative but to enter the shop. Taking a steadying breath, he opened the door.


	2. Chapter 2

For all intents and purposes the man who opened the door looked like a convict headed for the gallows. Broad shoulders were clad in a sleek leather jacket and his head was shaved, though he wore a perfectly trimmed goatee and mustache. His face was set into a grim countenance, too.

But none of that was why John Silver felt that he’d received a blow to the gut.

If he didn’t know better, and he wasn’t sure that he did, he would have called out to the man. Asked him if his name was James Flint, by any chance, and if he was a pirate. Or used to be a pirate, as it were. Probably wasn’t the best manners to ask a man if he was a pirate. Stereotyping and all that.

John tried to keep himself on task as he finished up the orders of the three or so patrons in front of Leather Jacket, but his eyes kept drifting back to him. He seemed to notice it, too, because he looked a little uncomfortable and their eyes kept meeting.

Finally it was Leather Jacket’s turn. John turned his most disarming smile on him and took his order. Leather Jacket looked almost surprised at being asked and looked up at the menu for a moment before grimacing and saying, “Black coffee.”

John’s grin faltered just a little. That was . . . not what he would have expected from Flint. The man had had a surprising sweet tooth, he’d found. Except, really, there was no proof that this was Flint. Well, it _was_ him, but that didn’t necessarily mean that it wasn’t all in John’s head. All of the remembrances, the moments on the beach, the battles and the _Walrus_ , those could just as well be made up visions.

“All right, that’ll be three dollars.”

Leather Jacket took out three crumpled ones from a worn wallet in his back pocket and slid them across the table. John took them and gave him his receipt. Just as he turned to go, though, a moment of panic that their interaction was coming to an end overtook his higher cognitive functions.

“And your name?” John asked without thinking. Leather Jacket gave him a questioning look.

“To enter you into a raffle we’re having. Winner gets a free cup of coffee,” he said, giving a disarming smile even though it was a bald faced lie.

It was an obvious lie, too, and if John wasn’t imagining it, Leather Jacket might have looked a little disappointed in him, instead of voicing his thoughts, though he merely said, “James.”

John’s heart skipped a beat, but he just smiled and said, “Coming right up!”


	3. Chapter 3

James felt a moment’s disappointment when John had asked for his name only to explain that it was for some inane raffle. Really, though, he didn’t know what else he had expected. There had been a moment when their eyes kept meeting, where he had wondered if maybe, for once, it wasn’t all in his head. If maybe John knew, too.

But he gave no hint of recognition. He was probably just surprised to find James continuing to stare at him. Poor kid probably thought he was about to get mugged or something. James really wasn’t the target audience of this place.

And when he’d been asked for his order, he realized he hadn’t even looked at the menu once. Given time, he probably could have found something he liked, but as it was, he was too startled to think of anything other than black coffee. James didn’t even like black coffee. It was actually Silver who drank it. His stomach clenched at the memory.

He took a seat at a secluded corner table, one from which he still had a clear view of the bar and waited for his order.

It was not long before John seemed to have served all the other patrons, but instead of calling for him, John left from behind the counter and made his way over to the corner table.

James couldn’t help but stare at the slightly off-balance gait as John walked over to him. His eyes seemed pulled to John’s left leg. Prosthetic.How many coincidences were too many? James found himself imagining the line where flesh ended and the prosthetic began. It was a line he knew well, too. There were no secrets, no hidden vulnerabilities left between them. Not even that.

“Noticed it’s a fake, have you?” John said cheerily enough. James looked up with a start, not realizing how long he’d been staring. “Lost it to a boating incident when I was a kid, as luck would have it. Makes a nice spectacle, though. Scares small children and the like.” James had the decency to flush, uttering an apology.

“What is this?” he asked as John set a cup in front of him.

“Look, I’m sorry, but I really think that you ordered the wrong drink. You don’t look like the kind of guy who drinks black coffee,” he said.

James raised an eyebrow. He was well aware that he was _exactly_ the kind of guy who looked like he drank his coffee black, or Irish, but this wasn’t that kind of café.

John just shook his head. “I can remake it if you insist, but I think you’ll enjoy this better. I’ve always had a knack for cooking, or making drinks in this case. Must have learned it in another life. Anyway, I think _this_ is your drink,” John said.

James stared at the cup before him, a bit wary about actually trying it. It was completely hidden under a mountain of whipped cream, but there was a sprinkling of chocolate shavings over the top.

James stared at it for a moment and had almost decided to tell John to take it back, when he looked up to see the barista hovering with an almost anxiously hopeful look on his face. James sighed and reached for the cup. It would have been worth it just to know he put that smile back on John’s face.

James sniffed it then took a sip. He hesitated, feeling the whipped cream touch his nose, there was so much of it, but once he got to the drink itself, he was pleasantly surprised. It was less of a mocha, and more of a creamy coffee-tinted hot chocolate. James had never tasted anything like it. He set the cup down, and wiped his face with a napkin.

He glanced up at John to see him still waiting expectantly, though his smile had grown increasingly wide. “Thank you,” was all he managed.

John gave an exuberant nod and clapped him on the shoulder as though they were old friends. It was that, more than anything, that had James speaking before John turned away, hoping to keep him there for just a moment longer.

“Do you really believe that?” James wasn’t sure why he said it, but once the words were out, he couldn’t take them back.

“Pardon?” John asked, as he swiveled around again, brows raising slightly. James just gave him a steady look.

“In past lives. You said you learned to cook in another life. Do you actually believe that this isn’t the first go around?”

And just like that John’s demeanor faltered. For one instant, his smile dropped, replaced by something far more hard, far more vulnerable. Far more Silver.

“Do you?” he asked, and James knew in that moment that everything pivoted on this question.

“I do not know what I believe. But I remember.”


	4. Chapter 4

John was resolved not to make this weird. He really had the best of intentions. For all he knew, he might just be as crazy as his shrink seemed to think. But as soon as James—and wasn’t that just too much to be a coincidence?—had given him a sliver of hope, it all came down.

He set his hand down on the table, unsure whether it was to ground himself or to keep his hand from reaching out to touch that red-stubbled cheek.

“Is it strange to say I’ve missed you?” John said, giving a guileless grin though the effect was doubtless ruined by the burning behind his eyes. Even if he was the biggest fool in history and he was misunderstanding everything, the weight off his shoulders was immense. It was good to finally say it.

The screech of metal against concrete was the only warning John got before he was enveloped in a pair of leather-clad arms. John’s fingers gripped at the back of James’ jacket as he inhaled his scent. It was in some ways different, and in some ways so much the same. A stubbled cheek pressed against his temple, and John let out a shaky laugh.

“I really thought that I might be insane,” John said.

James gave a huff of laughter, one hand moving to cup the back of his neck. “I don’t know that I’d go so far as to discount that possibility.”

John chuckled, pulling back enough to see James’ smiling eyes. His breath was struck from him again at the sight.

“You are probably too old for me,” John observed, tracing a wrinkle at the corner of his mouth. “I never noticed that before.”

“I’ve always been older than you,” James pointed out, his brows twitching into a frown. John grinned.

“Aye, but age seemed more lenient back then. Perhaps it was because the biggest distinction was between alive and dead. Pirates were old at 30. Most of you were ancient.”

“Then I guess it’s a good thing the average life expectancy today is that much higher.”

“Good, because I don’t . . .” John didn’t honestly know how to finish that sentence.

“Want to die young?”

“I was going to say something more along the lines of live without you, but that, too,” John said with a laugh.

James let out a long breath and pulled back. John itched to refuse the distance, to stay firmly in the circle of James’ arms, but he allowed the loss of contact, only because he could see that James was struggling with something. And the patrons were beginning to stare. Not that John really cared right now.

Instead, he took a seat opposite the one James had reclaimed and folded his hands over the table in front of him.

“What are you after, Silver?”

“Still don’t trust my intentions?” John said lightly, trying to hide how much the question stung.

James’ gaze had that sort of resigned air to it that said, I’m going to trust you even though I know I’ll regret it. It was the very same look that got John tangled up in this friendship in the first place. It was almost enough to turn him honest, and it actually was enough that it made him want to earn the man’s trust, not just because James was willing to give it, but because John _deserved_ it.

“I’m after you,” he said at long last. James’ eyes flickered up from where they had been studying his fingers intently.

“Why?”

“Because I want you,” he said.

“What for?”

“Are you trying to be difficult? I want you in whatever ways you’ll give me!” John said with an exasperated sigh. This seemed to shock James some.

“Oh, don’t think you’re the only one who started wondering if we might be,” John waved a vague hand between them, indicating, well, whatever was between them.

“One does wonder when I can comprehend the sentiment of that particular gesture.”

“Shut up, Flint,” he said, though he was smiling again.

“I never imagined, never allowed myself to imagine, that you might return my regard,” James began slowly. “Not in that way.”

“I have known your mind, and in so many ways it has become a part of my own, why should this be any different?”

James’ hand reached slowly across the table, an offering, and John didn’t hesitate to meet him half way, their fingers intertwining at the tips. Just that simple touch was enough to send John’s heart skyrocketing and a smile spreading across his face. But then it was John’s turn to pause.

“I hate to even ask it, and maybe I’m looking a gift horse in the mouth, but what of Thomas?”

James pulled back a little, eyes watching where his thumb traced the curve of John’s thumbnail. John’s heart sank.

“I met him,” James said. “Miranda, too. They were very much the same as they always were, married but not together like that, they were both together and apart, as it ever was.”

“What happened?” John asked around the lump in his throat, not entirely sure he wanted to know. James met his eyes at that.

“Nothing. They didn’t remember. I wondered why, at first, but even now, I’m not sure I regret it.”

“Why not? He was your truest love, was he not?”

“Maybe, and maybe I was his. But that was another life, John. What we had together was finished in Savannah. I have you to thank for that. This,” he gestured between them, “this was never finished. I can only reason that that is why we were given a second chance. So we can finish it.”

“It will never be finished,” John insisted, heart picking up speed. His fingers tightened on James’ hand, practically pulling himself halfway across the table in his desperation to get closer.

“You always were the selfish one,” James said, and then his mouth closed over John’s. He tasted of chocolate and cream and _him_. John wanted the moment to last forever.

Then James pulled away. “And what of you? Of Madi?” The way he whispered her name, gently, as though it was something fragile, made John’s heart twinge.

And that was it, wasn’t it? Madi was the thing that had broken them. Though they fought it as hard as they could, there was Madi. And John didn’t know whether he blamed himself for that or James.

“Did you know that we were married?” John said. He paused for a moment. “No, of course you wouldn’t. But we were. After she forgave me for what I did, to you as well as your war.”

The other occupants in the coffee shop were beginning to turn not so subtly toward them, but John just couldn’t bring himself to care if he looked like a sop.

“But even still, I was never hers,” John continued. “It was just like you said. You ruined that for us. You were the thing that plagued me all those years, plagued me until the very end. I named my goddamned parrot after you.”

“A parrot?” James asked with a disapproving frown. John laughed.

“I knew it would piss you off, and I guess I’ll always get a little pleasure from that.”

James’ eyes softened and he cupped a hand over John’s jaw before kissing him again. “I’m glad that I found you, anyway.”

“As am I. And even better that you’re not a parrot this time.”


End file.
